School Programs
Contact Amy:
amysimon@sheshistory.com
(310) 308-0947
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The Most Dangerous Women In America…Then And Now
Written and performed by Amy Simon
is a play about women who make and made history
Why Do We Know More About Kim Kardashian Than Abigail Adams?
Click here to see….
She’s History Three Minute Trailer
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The Ladies In The Show….
Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Abigail Adams
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony
The Grimke Sisters, Julia Ward Howe, Nancy Pelosi
Pat Schroeder, Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin
Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Katie Couric
Eleanor Roosevelt, Betsy Ross, Sally Hemmings
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Lucretia Mott
Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Fuller
Dolley Madison, Annie Oakley, Alice Paul, The Pankhursts
Mrs. Banks, Lilly Ledbetter, Sojourner Truth, Malala Yousafzai,
Frances Wright and Victoria Woodhull
The Women’s Museum of California (womensmuseumca.org) a 501(c) (3) is the fiscal sponsor for The She’s History Education Project, which provides free performances for educational organizations such as schools, libraries and museums.
Amy Simon is a Mom On A Mission….
When her ten-year-old daughter came home from school one March stating she was planning on doing her women’s history project on Cher, Amy Simon knew something needed to be done.
Drawing on diaries, letters, publications, and biographies and combining theater, history, multimedia, audience interaction, and good old-fashioned story telling, SHE’S HISTORY! brings to life the true tales of fabulous females, then and now. Going back and forth from the past to the present, Writer/Performer/Cultural Herstorian Amy Simon poignantly finds the funny as she chronicles the struggles and accomplishments of our unheralded, unknown and forgotten heroines whose courage and strength inspire her, as she raises her two daughters.
Watch Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multitask – just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner and corralling the kids, all while working on the Fourteenth Amendment. See and hear about our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and listen, as Frances Wright becomes the first woman to speak in public to “promiscuous” audiences. Watch Nancy Pelosi’s acceptance speech as First Female Speaker of The House, and witness Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I Woman speech. Learn about Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm, Lilly Ledbetter and Equal Pay, bloomers, suffrage, maternal profiling, the road to Seneca Falls, abolition and more! It’s all there in a fast-paced GALA-PALOOZA honoring Female America.
What People Are Saying…
“With gratitude for bringing us Bella’s words”.
Gloria Steinem
“With admiration for a terrific performance…”
Elizabeth Holtzman – former New York Congresswoman
“I thought it was very inspirational, It shows how far women have come and it’s hard to even imagine a time when women were not allowed to vote.”
Rep. Judy Chu – Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 32nd district the first ever Chinese-American female elected to congress
“I was so truly impressed with your show tonight. Thank you for answering the call to educate, entertain and awe your audiences doing this important work, sharing these remarkable facts about these incredible trailblazing women.Thanks Amy – You pulled it off! Great work!
Ellen Dubois, UCLA History Professor and renowned Women’s History author of Through Women’s Eyes, Unequal Sisters, Feminism and Suffrage.
“You have brought the courage and brilliance of our fore sisters alive…”
Martha Wheelock, Women’s History Professor, Harvard Westlake, Los Angeles
“Thank you for an entertaining and informative romp through women’s history. We enjoyed it a great deal!!”
Catherine Atwell, history teacher, Marlborough School
…she was fantastic—we were very pleased. We had an audience of 89 (a nice mix of teens and adults), and everyone appeared enthralled…
Melissa Elliott – Burbank Library
“I have never seen the students more engaged!”
David Foldvary, middle school history teacher, Horace Mann, Beverly Hills
“Great show Amy – informative, engaging, inspiring!”
Paula J. Caplan, Harvard University
Thank you for the enlightening show. Better than 20 years of school…
Jenny
You were awesome. I am now really interested in Women’s History.
Emma age 13
This was a fantastic performance. You must pursue your show throughout the country. The young women of today MUST hear what you say. Good luck!
Amy Simon’s one-woman show was perfect for League of Women Voters Pasadena Area…laced with humor throughout; this fast-paced performance is packed with information and kept the audience engaged throughout. Nearly half our audience was college students and they loved it, too. Kudos for putting together this important chronicle of women’s suffrage in the U.S.
Monica Hubbard – League Of Women Voters
I LOVED your show. The amount of information that you brought forth in such an entertaining way is astonishing…you wrote it brilliantly and performed it delightfully.
Barbara Schroeder, Emmy Award-Winning journalist and documentary filmmaker
Thanks for putting into three lively dimensions the women who I can only pay tribute to in my Facebook History posts!
David Dismore – Ms. Magazine
My youngest daughter in particular was inspired by your show (she wants to be an actress herself) and now she wants to learn more about Sojourner Truth. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your work makes a difference. Thank you for all you do!
Kimberly Tso
ASSEMBLY SHOW
Solo show performed by Amy Simon. Age appropriate versions for Middle School and High School. Run time anywhere from 50 to 75 minutes, to accommodate bell schedule. Includes talkback after the show if desired and time-permitting. Minimum stage area dimensions are 10’ x 10’. A slideshow is run from the performing area. A projector and the ability to plug into your sound system and a wall space or screen is required on which to project images, as well as a few tables for the laptop and props. Students take away a handout summarizing events and dialogue from the performance.
CLASSROOM SHOW – INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION
This program consists of a short slideshow presentation followed by a scripted and improvised re-enactment, performed by student volunteers, with Amy Simon narrating and directing.
The Sixteen Hundreds Program features Anne Hutchinson, Margaret Brent and Colonial Life.
The Eighteen Hundreds Program features Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abolition and the road to Seneca Falls.
Performance Fee: To Be Discussed
Amy Simon
Amy Simon is a mother, actress, playwright, improviser, published writer, producer, and self-proclaimed CulturalHerstorian. She has been acting in and producing theater for most of her adult life. Her first play Cheerios In My Underwear (And Other True Tales Of Motherhood) holds the record as the longest running solo show in Los Angeles.
A frequent guest on local and national radio, Amy was a guest commentator for American Woman In Fact And Fiction, a three part series that aired on Pacifica Radio Archives FromTheVault.org series. She is also a regular guest with her Fabulous Female Facts on the Nicole Sandler Show Radioornot.com. Working as a consultant on the 2008 launch of the Broad Stage Theater in Santa Monica, Amy performed a variety of duties, including stage-managing the thirteen member cast of American Voices: Spirit of the Revolution, Stephanie Glass Solomon’s original play based on The Federalist Papers, directed by and starring Dustin Hoffman, a truly wonderful man, whom she assisted. As the cast understudy she got to play Abigail Adams going in for Annette Bening in dress rehearsal.
Always interested in hearing and presenting what women have to say, Amy directed, co-produced and performed in Los Angeles with comedy groups GAL-O-RAMA and OVARYACTION at The Improv, The Laugh Factory and The Upfront Comedy Theatre. As the creative force and co-producer behind HEROINE ADDICTS, the four-year hit all-girl variety show, Amy worked with and was inspired by many of the most talented female writer/performers in Los Angeles (including Jane Lynch) at Hollywood’s bang Studio. She created and produced Motherhood Unpluggedand Moms Who Write, a mom written and performed story and music salon and stage show (to benefit Beyond Shelter) with LA Parent Magazine and Mamapalooza (Moms In The Arts). It inaugurated and is featured on Los Angeles’s KPFK Radio’s Pacifica Performance Showcase.
Amy is proud to be a Women’s History expert for The Women’s Media Center SheSource.org, an online braintrust of female professionals, founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem
SHE’S HISTORY! plays for schools and universities, the Girl Scouts, museums and libraries, historic sites and recently for The Coalition Against Trafficking In Women in New York City.
Amy plays California Pioneer Maude Younger in California Women Win The Vote, the documentary film produced by Wild West Women, Inc. (www.wildwestwomen.org). Her work in the classroom, as an educational specialist teaching improvisation and theater games, inspired her to create curriculum related interactive presentations ofSHE’S HISTORY! for Middle School.
As a “Herstorical” humorist, Amy writes, blogs, performs and entertains on the radio, online, and onstage furthering her mission to turn the world on to all the fabulous females no one knows anything about. She is the mother of two glorious teenage daughters who can tell you all about the first woman to run for President.
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Weekly
Beverly Hills
ALSO ON THE WEB
www.bhweekly.com
SERVING BEVERLY HILLS • BEVERLYWOOD • LOS ANGELES
Issue 602 • April 14 – April 20, 2011
Amy Simon presenting SHE’S HISTORY! focusing on the 1800s, to Dave Foldvary’s 8th Grade classes at Horace Mann in Beverly Hills.
Horace Mann parent reenacts women’s history for eighth graders
Ever heard of the Declaration of Sentiments? If you haven’t, Amy Simon will tell you it is a seminal document in women’s history, drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848 and modeled after the Declaration of Independence to address women’s rights.
Simon, an actress and women’s history expert, visited David Foldvary’s eighth grade history class at Horace Mann on April 1 to teach students about women’s history in the 1800s. Simon performs a one-woman show called She’s History! that introduces the audience to notable females throughout history. She is also the mother of Horace Mann eighth grader Ruby Margo and Beverly High senior Rose Margo. “The reason I do what I do is people like you don’t know anything about [the Declaration of Sentiments] and neither did I, but Mr. Foldvary and teachers today are much more ahead of the game than we were,” Simon said. “They’re teaching their students, finally, something about women’s history.”
During her presentation, Simon focused on women who organized for abolition and women’s rights during the 1800s. Simon introduced students to Stanton, Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Shelley and others. “All these women have things in common,” Simon said. “I link them together to show
how they inspired each other and gave us the rights we have today.”
Friday’s visit to Foldvary’s class was Simon’s third this school year. She does two different presentations with the students, one in which she acts out scenes from women’s history, and another in which she presents a lesson and then hands scripts to students so they can reenact scenes. She encourages improvisation. “The students get pretty engaged with it,” Foldvary said. “We’ve just completed our unit on reform movements: abolitionism, temperance, new literary movements and women’s suffrage, so this is a great culminating event for the eighth graders. They always love it when Amy comes in.”
Simon said it’s rewarding to see students recognize that women didn’t always have the same rights as men. “It’s really fantastic to see their minds racing, understanding, questioning and learning,” Simon said. “It’s really cool to see them understand the progress we’ve made and the sacrifices women and men have made to get the rights we have today.” For information about upcoming performances of Simon’s one-woman act, visit www. sheshistory.com.
Melanie Anderson
Horace Mann parent and ‘Herstorian’ Amy Simon drinks imaginary tea with eighth graders Isabella Perez and Gaby Rasson from David Foldvary’s social studies class. They were improvising a skit that acted out Anne Hutchinson’s life during Simon’s interactive history class pilot program.
Contact Amy:
(310) 308-0947
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Contact Amy:
(310) 308-0947
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